Instrument templates
Define the reusable product shapes issuers select during asset issuance.
An instrument template packages one financial product shape for reuse: the asset classAn Asset Class groups instrument templates by economic category for catalog navigation and exposure reporting.Read the concept and base asset type, the token features and their default values, the metadata fields the issuance flow collects, and the compliance policyA Compliance Policy lets a compliance team write eligibility and holding rules once, while a platform floor reaches every current-factory token.Read the concept a new asset starts from. In short, a template is a set of token features with their defaults, plus metadata fields and a compliance policy. What you publish on this screen decides what an issuer sees, and must fill in, the next time they open Issue new asset.
Reach for this screen when a new product line needs a shape, such as a bond series, a share class, or a deposit program, or when an existing line's fields, features, or policy must change for future issuance. You also use it to choose which templates your organisation offers for issuance. You do not need it to issue one asset; that happens in Issue new asset, which lists the templates your organisation has published. You also rarely start from nothing: the DALP Library ships system templates for debt, equity, funds, deposits, stablecoins, real assets, structured products, and Islamic certificates, and the usual move is duplicating one of them and adjusting the copy.
Template changes are forward looking. An issued instrument keeps its own copy of the configuration it was created with, so publishing a change, unpublishing or hiding a template, or deleting it alters the next issuance and never rewrites an existing asset. To change an existing asset, use its own management controls; template edits affect future issuance.
A template is a draft, published, or unpublished
Each template has one of three statuses in your organisation. The status is yours alone: another organisation that reads the same DALP Library template sees the status it chose.
| Status | Offered in Issue new asset | How a template gets there |
|---|---|---|
| "Draft" | No | You create a template. It stays a draft until it passes readiness and you publish. |
| "Published" | Yes, unless you also hide it | You publish it, or it is one of the three DALP Library templates published at first. |
| "Unpublished" | No | You unpublish it, or it is any other DALP Library template you have not published. |
Three DALP Library templates start published in every organisation: Equity, Bond, and Stablecoin. Every other DALP Library template starts unpublished, so Issue new asset shows a short list until you add to it. Your choice replaces that starting state for your organisation and stays until you change it again.
Publishing and unpublishing are reversible without limit. Unpublishing never returns a template to draft, so publishing it again needs no second readiness check. An asset issued from a template you later unpublish keeps its page, its asset class, its sidebar entry, and its operations.
A template change lands at the next issuance: every instrument already issued keeps its own configuration from issuance.
Steps
Open Instrument templates
Open "Asset design", then "Instrument templates". The catalog is a table with one row per template and the columns "Name", "Asset class", "Source", "Status", "Version", and "Updated". Narrow it with the search box or the "Asset class", "Source", and "Status" filters, sort it by a column heading, and page through it at the bottom. "Source" separates "DALP Library" system templates from your organisation's own, and "Status" separates "Draft", "Published", and "Unpublished" templates.
Select the arrow at the start of a row to expand it. The expanded row shows the template's description and its required features, plus its structure role and a "Hidden" badge when those apply. Selecting the row itself opens the template's detail page. The fastest way to audit what issuers currently see is filtering "Status" to "Published" and expanding any row you want to check for the "Hidden" badge.
When you hold a managing role, each row ends with a "Publish" or "Unpublish" button that changes the template's state for your organisation in one step. On a draft the button is unavailable, because a draft publishes from its detail page after it passes readiness.
Screen equivalent: the catalog is a table. Each row names the template, its asset class, its source, its draft, published, or unpublished state, its version, and its last update. A row expands to show the description and the required features.
Choose a starting point
Select "Create template" and pick one of the three starting modes:
| Starting mode | What you get | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|
| "Blank" | An empty draft with no inherited features. | No existing template fits the product. |
| "Clone one of yours" | A draft copy of one of your organisation's templates. | A close relative of the product already exists. |
| "Start from DALP library" | A draft copy of a system template. | A standard market shape fits, which is the common case. |
Every mode creates a new draft; nothing you change in it touches the source. A clone is named after its source with "(Copy)" appended, and cloning the same source again picks the next free "(Copy 2)", "(Copy 3)", and so on, because template names must be unique in your organisation. "Duplicate template" on any template's detail page is a shortcut into this step with that template preselected.
Screen equivalent: three starting-mode cards, Blank, Clone one of yours, and Start from DALP library. Choosing Clone or Library opens a source gallery grouped by asset class, with a search box and an asset-class filter for narrowing a long catalog.
Define the product shape
Work through "Basics" and "Classification", then select the token features on "Features" and configure each one's defaults. The name is yours to change later through the detail page's Basics section, using its "Edit" control, even after publishing; the identifier derived from it at creation is not, so name the product line rather than this quarter's offering. The asset class decides which base asset type the instrument uses, and the base type decides which instrument-specific details issuance collects later, such as maturity and coupon inputs for a debt shape. Feature dependencies and conflicts are enforced as you toggle. A feature that needs another one reads "Select Historical Balances first." until you enable that one, and the only conflicting pair, transaction fee and transaction fee accounting, reads "Conflicts with Transaction Fee Accounting." Turning a feature off also turns off every feature that depends on it. The token features catalog lists each feature, its parameters, and what it needs. A feature value can either be fixed here or left "Configurable in the asset designer" for the issuer to set. When a value is required at deploy time, turning that setting off means saving a default for it here first, or issuers cannot complete the form; a value left configurable needs no default from you, since the issuer supplies it. Seven features carry a further condition: external transaction fee, maturity redemption, fixed treasury yield, dividend yield, interest yield, the distribution waterfall, and conversion each need a token already registered in the tenant, the token that pays or prices the feature, and conversion needs a target token that has the conversion minter as well. Any token the tenant already holds satisfies the check. It does not have to be a stablecoin, and the conversion target does not have to be an equity token. A template that fixes the value itself, instead of leaving it to the issuer, does not trigger the condition. Enabling one of these without its token in place still lets the template save and publish, but Issue new asset badges it "Prerequisite setup needed" and, in the template's detail panel, offers "Create a token" and, for a payment or fee token, "Register an existing token", instead of letting an issuer pick it. The "Instrument capital" choice on the same step declares what the instrument's units are: "Share capital" for ordinary, preferred and class shares, "Unit capital" for fund units and real-estate fractions, or neither for a SAFE, a warrant or a debt shape. It decides which corporate actions an asset can run, and each asset keeps the capital its template declared when it was issued.
Add the metadata fields issuance must collect
On "Metadata", select "Add Metadata" for each product fact the issued instrument should record. Product facts are the record fields an issued instrument must carry, such as an ISIN or a maturity date. A field carries a name, a display label, a value type, a required flag, and a Mutability choice: "Immutable" locks the recorded value for good once the instrument is issued, and "Restricted Mutable" leaves room for a later change. The value type has fifteen options; prefer a specific one such as "ISIN", "LEI", or "Currency code, ISO 4217" over "String", because a typed field validates the issuer's entry the moment it is typed. Mark a fact required only when issuance should not proceed without it, because every required field becomes a gate each future issuance must pass; a default value pre-fills the entry and keeps optional facts cheap. A field can also be left "Configurable in the asset designer", the same choice a token feature value carries, so the issuer sets it rather than you fixing it here.
Attach a policy, then publish or save the draft
On "Compliance", pick the published policy template that assets created from this template start from, or "No compliance template", then resolve any gap the "Review" step lists and either publish or select "Save as draft".
The Compliance step starts with a "Jurisdiction" field: pick the country where assets from this template are issued, and the policy list below filters to match. The platform stores your choice as the default value of the template's jurisdiction metadata field when that field is a country field, and otherwise of issuerJurisdiction. When the field it would write does not exist, the step adds it as a country field, which then appears on the "Metadata" step and is filled in for the issuer at issuance; a template with neither field gets jurisdiction. When both fields exist and neither is a country field, the "Jurisdiction" field is disabled. When that field limits its options to certain countries, the "Jurisdiction" field offers only those countries. With a default of Germany, the list shows policy templates that name Germany, policy templates that name a group containing Germany such as the EU or the EEA, and global policy templates. The "Applies to Germany" chip turns the filter on and off: select it to list every policy template when the one you need lies outside the filter, and select it again to filter once more. The filter never changes the policy template you already selected, which stays selected and visible when it lies outside the filter. With no jurisdiction chosen, the list is unfiltered. Choose "No jurisdiction" to clear the choice.
Attaching a policy adds its own "Compliance details" steps to every future issuance from this template. The issuer only fills in the values the policy leaves open, The number of inputs depends on which values the policy leaves configurable, not on how restrictive the policy is. Without a policy template, issuance does not install that template's token-level modules. Identity checks, inherited global controls, and any other configured token rules still apply. Review the resulting policy before issuing. The readiness check blocks publishing when a stored feature configuration no longer matches its expected shape, and its fix is reopening the Features step. Publishing also rejects a template whose feature misses a dependency or that selects both conflicting features; the Features step prevents both, so only a template written through the API reaches that check. Publishing a draft cannot return it to draft. To stop offering the template later, unpublish it, as the next sections describe.
Publish or unpublish a template for your organisation
Two controls change whether your organisation offers a template, and both work on DALP Library templates and on your own.
- On the template's detail page, the "Visibility" card starts with the "Published" switch. Turn it on to offer the template in Issue new asset, and off to stop offering it.
- In the catalog table, the "Publish" or "Unpublish" button at the end of the row does the same without opening the template.
The change takes effect at once, asks for no confirmation, and applies to your organisation only. On a draft the switch is unavailable and the Console explains why: resolve the readiness gaps, then select "Publish template" in the detail page's manage menu. That first publish is the only one the readiness check gates.
Outside the Console, PUT /api/v2/settings/asset-type-templates/{id}/publish publishes a template and PUT /api/v2/settings/asset-type-templates/{id}/unpublish unpublishes it. Publish accepts a DALP Library template and an unpublished template, as well as a ready draft. Each template in a list or read response reports isPublished for the calling organisation, and the list accepts isPublished as a filter and as a sort field. The instrument template endpoints list, create, read, update, publish, unpublish, and delete a template, and the CLI commands mirror them.
Publish an instrument structure for your organisation
An instrument structure groups two or more templates into one multi-class instrument, such as the "Dual-Class Share Structure" or the "Convertible Note Structure" in the DALP Library. A structure has its own published state in your organisation, separate from the state of its templates. Issue new asset offers a structure only when three things are true: your organisation has the structure published, every template in it is published, and no template in it is hidden.
| Structure | Starts as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A DALP Library structure | "Unpublished" | It follows the DALP Library templates, which start unpublished. |
| A structure your organisation creates | "Published" | You built it from templates you chose, so it is offered once they are published. |
Open the "Structures" tab of Instrument templates to see every structure as a table. The "Status" column reads "Published" or "Unpublished", and a published structure with a hidden template also shows "Not offered". Expand a row to see each class with its role, its template, and the template's own state: "Published", "Unpublished", or "Hidden". Filter "Status" to find the structures your issuers cannot choose.
Screen equivalent: the Structures tab is a table. Each row names the structure, its asset class, its source, its "Published" or "Unpublished" status, the number of instruments deployed from it, and its last update. A row ends with a "Publish" or "Unpublish" button and a "View structure" link, and expands to show each class.
To publish a structure, select "Publish" at the end of its row, or open the structure and turn on the "Published" switch at the top of the sheet. On a DALP Library structure that switch is the only control you can change. When some of the structure's templates are unpublished, a dialog lists them first, because publishing the structure also publishes them for your organisation. Confirm to publish all of them in one step, or cancel to change nothing.
To stop offering a structure, select "Unpublish" or turn the switch off. There is no confirmation, the change is reversible, and the structure's templates stay published. Unpublishing does not affect assets already issued from the structure, and an issuance run that the platform accepted before you unpublished still completes.
A template that a published structure uses cannot be unpublished. Its "Unpublish" button and its "Published" switch are disabled, and the Console names the structures that use it. Unpublish those structures first. Because a structure your organisation creates starts published, its templates are protected from the moment you save it.
When you replace a class of a published structure with an unpublished template, the structure becomes "Unpublished". It stays unpublished when that template is published later for another reason, so the structure is offered again only when someone publishes it.
Outside the Console, PUT /api/v2/settings/asset-type-template-structures/{id}/publish publishes a structure together with its unpublished templates, and PUT /api/v2/settings/asset-type-template-structures/{id}/unpublish unpublishes it. Both answer 409 when the structure is already in that state. Each structure in a list or read response reports isPublished for the calling organisation, each of its members reports isPublished and isHidden, and the list accepts isPublished as a filter and as a sort field. Unpublishing a template that a published structure uses answers the 409 error ASSET_TYPE_TEMPLATE_USED_BY_PUBLISHED_STRUCTURE, and its data.structures lists the id and name of each structure that uses the template. An issuance run on an unpublished structure answers the non-retryable 409 error TOKEN_ISSUANCE_RUN_STRUCTURE_UNPUBLISHED.
You can still edit, hide, or delete a published template
A published organisation template stays editable through Basics, features, metadata, and compliance. Saved changes update future issuance. A DALP Library template is the exception: its detail page marks it "System template. Read-only.", with no edit or delete control, so "Duplicate template" is the only way to adapt one into an editable copy your organisation owns.
Two more controls on the detail page take a template out of use:
- The other two "Visibility" switches hide the template from the main sidebar or from the asset designer without deleting anything. Hiding is reversible, applies to your organisation, and the Console notes beside the switch that existing tokens are unaffected. A hidden template is not offered in Issue new asset, whatever its published state. Hiding from the asset designer also removes the template from the starting-point gallery in "Create template", which unpublishing does not.
- "Delete" is permanent and offered only on templates your organisation created. The confirmation dialog warns that it removes the template together with its metadata fields and feature settings. Instruments already issued from it are untouched, because each keeps its own copy of the configuration.
Troubleshooting
The template cannot be published
Publishing is blocked when you lack the Admin, System manager, or Asset designer role, or when a draft's readiness list shows a gap. A readiness gap is a saved feature configuration that no longer matches its expected shape; open "Features", reconfigure the feature the gap names, and save. A template written through the API is also refused when a feature misses a dependency or when it selects transaction fee together with transaction fee accounting.
The template is absent from asset issuance
A template appears in "Issue new asset" only when your organisation has it published, it is not hidden from the asset designer, and the Configurable Asset is deployed on the platform. Check the "Status" column in the catalog and the "Visibility" switches on the detail page. A DALP Library template other than Equity, Bond, and Stablecoin stays unpublished until someone in your organisation publishes it. Ask a platform administrator about the "Instruments" screen under "Components" when none of these explains it.
A structure is listed but cannot be selected
A published structure shows "Prerequisite setup needed" when one of its templates needs a prerequisite token. Set up that token first, then reopen "Issue new asset".
A structure is absent from asset issuance
Issue new asset lists a structure only when your organisation has published it and every template in it, and none of those templates is hidden. An unpublished structure, such as either DALP Library structure in a new organisation, shows "Unpublished" on the "Structures" tab. There, "Publish" offers the structure and publishes its unpublished templates with it after you confirm; ask an asset designer when your account cannot publish. A structure with a hidden template shows "Not offered", and its expanded row marks the hidden template. Show that template again from its detail page, then reopen "Issue new asset".
Unpublish is disabled on a template
A published structure uses the template. The disabled control names the structures. Unpublish them on the "Structures" tab, then unpublish the template.
An API, SDK, or CLI issuance is rejected after an upgrade
The platform rejects a token creation or an issuance run that names a template your organisation has unpublished, with
the 409 error TOKEN_CREATE_TEMPLATE_UNPUBLISHED or TOKEN_ISSUANCE_RUN_TEMPLATE_UNPUBLISHED. Retrying does not
help until the template is published. This affects every DALP Library template except Equity, Bond, and Stablecoin
until you publish it. Publish the template on this screen or call the publish endpoint, then send the request again.
The template is listed but cannot be selected
A template with external transaction fee, maturity redemption, fixed treasury yield, dividend yield, interest yield, the distribution waterfall, or conversion needs a token already registered in the tenant, and conversion needs a target token that carries the conversion minter as well. Missing one shows "Prerequisite setup needed" on the card instead of letting you pick it. Open the template's detail panel and use its "Create a token" choice, or "Register an existing token" for a payment or fee token, then return to Issue new asset.
A template lost its class or policy
Deleting the asset class or policy template it used clears that field on the template rather than deleting the template. Open the template and set a replacement.
The wizard rejects the template name
Template names are unique within an organisation, so a name already in use is refused. Pick a distinct name; when cloning, the Console already appends "(Copy)" to keep the copy valid.
Frequently asked questions
Who can see the templates my organisation creates?
Only your organisation. The catalog shows your own templates plus the shared DALP Library; another organisation's templates never appear in your list, and yours never appear in theirs. The published state is equally organisation scoped, so unpublishing a DALP Library shape removes it from your issuers' choices without affecting anyone else.